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\n

Members of Congress are confronting a grim reality: They are ill-equipped to rein in advanced artificial intelligence that one expert warns could \u201ckill us all\u201d by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

A viral social media post<\/u><\/a> this week from ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon cautioned that AI companies are \u201cgambling with our lives\u201d as they race to develop superintelligent models \u2014 prompting alarm from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and new calls to action.<\/p>\n

In conversations with Blue Light News throughout the day Wednesday, more than a dozen lawmakers and aides from both parties said they were hopeful Congress would start taking the issue seriously. By Wednesday evening, OpenAI\u2019s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, was pledging to \u201cwork with Congress<\/u><\/a>” to implement “mandatory, capability-based national AI safety regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many also conceded that Congress is currently sleepwalking into a crisis, far from ready to tackle the stakes of the moment in light of both philosophical differences and intractable partisan politicking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we’re finally hitting a tipping point,\u201d Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who co-chairs the House AI Caucus, said in an interview. \u201cI’m just so grateful that the whole world is finally paying attention \u2026 and now the question is, what do we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mounting worries inside the tech industry about a looming AI apocalypse are beginning to resonate with more members of Congress. Building on the panic seven weeks ago when hundreds of OpenAI-generated \u201cagents\u201d went rogue and hacked another AI platform, Hugging Face, lawmakers Wednesday called for radical action in the immediate aftermath of Coxon\u2019s X posts late Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s broad consensus \u2014 and in speaking with the AI companies directly, they want a regulatory framework,\u201d Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a vulnerable moderate incumbent who has introduced bipartisan AI safety legislation, said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He called it \u201cone of the biggest issues that Congress has to tackle over the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far from certain this desire to make progress on the issue will translate into meaningful legislative activity \u2014 and certainly not before the end of the year, with some lawmakers questioning whether their colleagues take the matter seriously or fully understand<\/u><\/a> how the technology even works.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Sam Liccardo of California, who leads AI policy for the centrist New Democrat Coalition, said in an interview his team recently struggled to convince other members to attend a series of events at the Library of Congress that featured OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been serious conversations among a small number of us, and we need that number to be larger. There is a percentage of my colleagues who are still trying to spell AI,\u201d Liccardo said, adding, \u201cwe need to dramatically increase the base knowledge of Congress if we’re going to legislate meaningfully. And I know that is not going to happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), who introduced a bill this summer to create an AI \u201ckill switch\u201d with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), said in an interview he thought efforts to put checks on advanced models would be a priority in the next Congress. Quicker action, he agreed, would be a heavy lift.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of days that we have left between the election and the end of the year is going to be very tough to educate members and then move a meaningful bill,\u201d he said. \u201cThe broad scope of members on both sides of the aisle are trying to get caught up.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also not yet consensus on the appropriate reaction and policy response to the threat posed by superintelligence. No committee in either chamber has considered a substantive proposal to put guardrails on AI development amid disagreements over how aggressive the federal government should be in regulating the private sector and stifling innovation.<\/p>\n

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who convened a markup of AI-adjacent bills<\/u><\/a> in August that steered clear of addressing safety regulations, said in an appearance on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View\u201d Wednesday that the new warnings were \u201chighly concerning\u201d<\/u><\/a> and endorsed passing legislation to prevent \u201ccatastrophic risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to a pending bipartisan bill from Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that is expected to represent a more targeted approach<\/u><\/a> than a version of the legislation that advanced out of the Commerce Committee in the previous Congress.<\/p>\n

Klobuchar and Thune, however, have provided no timetable for when their new measure might be formally introduced. Thune\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment, while Klobuchar in a statement said only that she would \u201ccontinue to work toward a bipartisan agreement on legislation for commonsense guardrails to address the risks posed by AI systems,\u201d while adding, \u201cit\u2019s clear we need to act now and not wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the Capitol, House Democrats made especially clear in the aftermath of Coxon\u2019s X posts that they will seek to move quickly if they win the majority in November, with some now discussing whether to establish a select committee on AI<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries convened a Democrat-only AI commission this term to formulate policy recommendations after Speaker Mike Johnson declined to reconstitute a bipartisan AI taskforce, and co-chair Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) projected confidence Wednesday the group’s forthcoming report would pave the way for meaningful legislative action on AI safety.<\/p>\n

Passing AI safety legislation will require buy-in from Republicans, however \u2014 and Gottheimer, asked if Congress is moving fast enough, blamed GOP leaders for lack of momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you’re really asking me is if the Republican leadership is working fast enough on this, right? Because they’re the ones who control the agenda,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you’ve seen a lot of action out of members of Congress. I think our commission has been incredibly active.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Democrats joined Gottheimer in blaming Republicans for slow-walking legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt only would take one phone call from the speaker to say, \u2018I want five Democrats and five Republicans in a room, and I want them to emerge from that room next week with legislation that we can bring to committee and then bring to the floor,\u2019\u201d said Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. \u201cThat\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Johnson and Jeffries did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Even if Democrats take back gavels after the midterms, they, too, lack a clear plan to address the growing threat of unchecked AI. Progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), are advocating for a ban on superintelligence \u2014 a proposal that more moderate Democrats claim has no viable path to passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie Sanders,\u201d said Gottheimer, \u201cwants to put it in the box and throw it away, but that’s not living in reality. I think we need a reasonable, smart, commonsense approach that’s realistic but also sets up mandatory rules of the road \u2014 legislative rules of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) brokered a bipartisan safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) that the two lawmakers have pitched as a consensus proposal, but it has so far failed to win the support to advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot just put your head in the sand on AI and say, \u2018I hope it works out.\u2019 You can’t just go in and say, \u2018Government’s got the solution \u2014 they\u2019re just going to ban it all.\u2019 That\u2019s just not going to work,\u2019\u201d Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a staunch conservative who is leaving Congress at the end of the year, said in an interview. \u201cWe’re going to have to be thoughtful as leaders and actually have some friggin\u2019 leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen Dahlkamp, Gabby Miller, Katherine Long, Mia McCarthy and Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of Congress are confronting a grim reality: They are ill-equipped to rein in advanced artificial intelligence that one expert warns could \u201ckill us all\u201d by the end of the decade. A viral social media post this week from ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon cautioned that AI companies are \u201cgambling with our lives\u201d as they race […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}